Without first having all the FACTS before them.Please folks a little modesty, after all we also screwed up a few times,and in reality, who does not..

but Algeria had its own problems with a muderous islamic activists. Their speciality, as I recall, was slitting the throats of their co-religionists.

I wouldn't go to work in an Arab country and wouldn't even visit one. People that went to work there decided that the money was worth the risk. Algeria appears to have zero tolerance for terrorists; is that bad?

Its none of Israels business so officers opinions are not desired

The Sayeret Matkal may well be good but when was the last time Israeli forces rescued any hostages? Entebbe was long ago, Barak is retired and more recently Shalit spent 5 years as a hostage and he was just down the road in gaza.. not exactly a great track record. For Israeli forces these days it is all theory and no actual recent experience of hostage rescue. The reality is we don't know what actually happened on the ground there, maybe circumstances forced Algeria to act immediately, maybe they actually know more about the situation, maybe they know exactly who they are dealing with and what would happen if they delayed.. maybe they just don't give a damn about casualties as long as the objective is met - dead terrorists, situation resolved, deterrent restored.

The alegirian policy is one of no nonsense. We go in we kill as many terrorists as posible. Period This will have the Islam terrorists think twice about an atack again in alegirian. The constant pussy futing the west practices only invites more teror

"Dead terrorists, situation resolved, deterrent restored" A handful of dead terrorists, current situation resolved -- more to come; count on it --, deterrent temporarily postponed. Oh! And over two dozen dead innocent hostages. You forgot to mention them.

Okay. No South Africans in Gaza or in Judea and Samaria, so South African opinion on those matters is completely superfluous. Since no South Africans are involved, South Africa should very definitely recuse itself from any votes on the issue in the United Nations. Israel, on the other hand, being the target of the periodic hatefests hosted by South Africa in Durban, is under no such restraint.

Respect to the algerian military for solving this crisis and for sending a message to terrorists that they will be destroyed. Algerians hit hard and they did not bother with nonsense bullshit " negotiations " and bullshit " 2 state solutions " because algerians know how to defeat their foes. The algerians could well teach " Mr Sayeret Matkal " marshmallow a thing or two . Avital Doron would still be negotiating with the hostage takers.

The hostages in Algeria were "Dead men waqlking " because there was no way on earth they could have remained alive nor escaped alive from that horrendous situation . Algeria hit hard and fast and brough the crisis to a speedy end .They do not waste time indulging in nonsensical " negotiations " like Mr Avital and his fantasy 'land " two -state solution ." nonsense.

With all due respect to Doron Avital . the hostages in Algerian gas depot were never going to leave this situation alive. There is just no way they could have been successfully rescued . The algerian forces understood this only too well. Foreign workers who choose to work in such places must be aware of the potential risks. At on e time ,Israel tolerated zero nonsense from its enemies but those days are long gone .These days ,this approach is left to the algerians. Mr Avital needs to learn from the algerians and not the other way around.

Not sure why Israelis are talking here about their strategy for hostage situations. It seems like there is a lot of "public speaking" these days about all sorts of things related to security, operational strategy, etc. I wish everyone would stop this and let the world keep guessing about Israeli capabilities and "best thinking." There was a time when the word "Mossad" quickened people's pulse outside of Israel and no one outside of Israel even heard of Sayeret Matkal. Sometimes what people don't know is even scarier to them than what they do know. Personally, with the state of world affairs, I'd rather people still tremble when thinking about Israel special ops than just shrug with a "oh yea, the Israelis" attitude.

in Algeria. Let others pull their own chestnuts out of fire .What has Durban got to do with things?? I think S A is HORRID to Israel as MANY of my posts over the past years indicate.Dont try to bring S A stories into this.

Israel does it ( or used to do it ) their way...and " I DID IT MY WAY ."

Islamist militants apparently believe we're not allowed to defend ourselves against them. They attack Israel from Gaza; Israel fights back and kills one behind those attacks; Gaza calls for revenge. Islamic insurgents try to take over northern Mali; the French try to help the Mali government against those insurgents; Islamists seek "revenge" by attacking civilians in Algeria. Islamists are worse than the Borg, who only claimed "Resistance is futile". The Borg never promised "revenge" to those who fought back, as if it were a moral crime to defend oneself.

If you were a militant would you want to try it again ? Kind of reminds me of the time the Russians filled the theatre with gaz to knock out the hostages and militants. It was a massacre but it ended with the militants being eradicated. They did not get what they wanted.

It kinda reminds one of the Keystone Cops!

Israeli yenta syndrome....on talkbacks. In reality, those than know usually remain silent.

All get dragged up to the chopping block here. None are spared.

the algerians did what they had to do. they killed as many jihadists as they could. lily livered, craven westerners, think that murderous jihadists are like western criminals who want some money and will release hostages in return. lily livered, craven western leaders, still have not grasped that the jihadists are a murderous death cult who hate all non-muslims and want all of them out of all muslim lands. these jihadists want to restore an islamic caliphate. they do not care how many people die in the process.

know how so, so many people are tired with you and your comments. No, Israel is NOT the center of the world. Is not the perfect country with the perfect people - so, stop once and for all scorning the rest of the world

and read the article again. Slowly. Avital did not speak about negotiations to negotiate away the situation. He spoke about negotiations as intelligence gathering, so what the Algerians tried (which I do give them credit for) could result in a better outcome. And given Israel’s experience in these kind of situations, I give more credit to Avital’s words then to yours. This has nothing to do with “2-state” solution. Avital knows that. You do not.

the center of the world,the blind world considers the dispute over a few acres of land between Israel and the arabs as the most important problem that needs to be resolved,while ignoring the blood bath going on in the muslim world,Iraq.syria,pakistan,afganistan,the Palestinians don't want a state,the palestinians want to destroy a state,Ireland,Spain,the scandinavians,are helping them.